Pianist's career takes a dive

July 27 2003
The Sun-Herald

A French concert pianist ended his career yesterday by hiring a helicopter to drop his piano into a lake in the south of the country.

Francois-Rene Duchable played Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto and Saint-Saens's 2nd to an audience of 2000 before the instrument was consigned to the depths of La Colmiane, near Nice in south-eastern France.

He said he was retiring at the age of 51 to "change his life". The gesture, he said, was to show that everything was over, to get rid of the weight of a career.

"It was a purification by water," he said.

Purification by fire follows on August 31 at the Provencal village of Mazauges. Duchable will play at a festival ending the evening by burning the clothes he performed in.

"I leave with a real exaltation, a great freedom for what will follow," he declared.